


A thousand matches.

by chippedcookie



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Artist!Chanyeol, M/M, restaurant owner!ksoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 00:32:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8555665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chippedcookie/pseuds/chippedcookie
Summary: I said there's got to be a better way,
She said,
You light a thousand matches,
When you finally set fire well you run away.
— A thousand matches, Passenger.The dishwasher is leaking again. Kyungsoo watches with dismay as the puddle of water gets inevitably larger. It feels fitting as a metaphor for the amount of things going terribly wrong right then, only growing larger without any hint of stopping.





	

The dishwasher is leaking again. Kyungsoo watches with dismay as the puddle of water gets inevitably larger. It feels fitting as a metaphor for the amount of things going terribly wrong right then, only growing larger without any hint of stopping. In the past four years, Kyungsoo had never really stopped to think about the things that were wrong, he kept his head down and kept working, patching things up as he went. Never before he had thought, _this is the final straw_. He had no time to think abut the things he could and could not do, he only did his best. Cooking, cleaning, insulating up the windows and painting over the ugly mustard yellow of the walls. Now, though, it is clear.

 

“I can't do this anymore.”

 

The _For Sale_ sign goes up the day after. He begins tying up loose ends by giving Sehun and Jongdae their paychecks for the rest of the week, though it is only Tuesday. He doesn't plan on having them to come helping him move his stuff out of the place.

They both don't seem surprised at the announcement, but both hesitate to take both the envelope with the money and the two bags filled with perishable food Kyungsoo has packed them both. Jongdae is the first one to reach out, but what he takes is neither the bag nor the envelope, he takes Kyungsoo's hand instead.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

He knows where the concern comes from, and he is thankful that Jongdae asked, but he could not explain to either of them how OK he is with not being OK. The best example would be the washing machine breaking down on him during clean up on Sunday night, but the only person who would truly get it is not here to listen, so he doesn't bother.

Sehun frowns when he notices the amount inside the envelope, but Kyungsoo shuts down any protest. The fact that they both had seen it coming doesn't mean that Kyungsoo's decision wasn't sudden. They both need a good send off. They both try to offer help, they are friends before employees, but Kyungsoo is firm. He doesn't need any help.

Jongdae lingers when Sehun has gone, throwing a last pitiful glance behind his shoulder before closing the door. They have been friends for a long time and Kyungsoo expected Jongdae – forever the stubborn one, – to put up a bit more of a fight. Jongdae doesn't say _you can't do it alone,_ because it would make Kyungsoo even more eager to prove him wrong, but he offers to come by anyway.

 

 

 

The first things that need to go are the freezer and the double door fridge. He empties them first choosing what's to go and what he is going to keep in the tiny fridge he has back home. When his stomach starts to rumble, picking from each pile, he makes himself a late lunch, grilling vegetables and few thin slices of pork. He adds oil and mint, and eats everything sitting on the counter not bothering with forks or knives. It feels liberating. While the fridge and the freezer defrost, he starts rounding up tables and chairs towards the entrance. He already sold most of the furniture and it's only been two days since he put the ad out. The chair guy is a fifty-something guy that owns a bar on the other side of the city and was looking into remodeling. As much as Kyungsoo loves this place, he has to admit that the furniture is not one of its strong points. To each his own, he guesses.

 

 

“You never made this kind of stuff before,” Jongdae says around a mouthful of mid-rare steak with a side of porcini mushroom with garlic and parsley served with toasted bread.

 

Kyungsoo cuts a bit of his own steak and mulls over in his head. He _did_ make this kind of things before, but in that before Jongdae wasn't present and he couldn't know. What Jongdae knows is whatever dulled down version of Kyungsoo was left after everything went to shit. There was no flavor before, but there is now, and that is just about enough for Kyungsoo to feel better about this whole thing. It doesn't feel like a failure when Jongdae asks for more bread to collect even the last drop of sauce left on his plate.

 

“Should have shut down sooner,” Jongdae says, in that absentminded way of his. He catches himself too late, looking up guiltily, with an apology ready on his lips. Kyungsoo only, laughs, though, because Jongdae is right he should have done this sooner.

 

 

 

The freezer goes too, scrubbed clean and ready to be loaded on some friend of some guy that wants to open a fake food truck or something along those lines. Kyungsoo only holds the door open for them when they get there and smiles politely when they hand him the money. As he waves them off, Kyungsoo feels a bit more hollow, but lighter at the same time. It's a good feeling all in all, so he clings on to it until he goes to bed.

 

The pace is almost empty when the fourth day is about to end. When dinner time comes around Kyungsoo has just enough to make himself one of those pies he used to be famous for, with thin flaky crust and juicy filling of pears chocolate and rum. The smell envelops him, and under the dim yellow light under the stove, it almost feels like he could do this all over again.

 

 

The last room to clean is the tiny office he has been holing himself up in for the past four years. The desk is the same as he left it Monday evening, when he closed up after mopping the water in the kitchen. Papers scattered around and the kind of messiness he leaves for private spaces like this one. He already knows what needs to go and what he needs to keep so it should not take long. All the documents are stuffed away in cardboard boxed labeled by year that would make his accountant cringe, but worked for him so far. He stacks those just outside the door to throw away and grabs the few knick-knacks that are left on the shelves. A wolf carved out of wood, a penguin made with blown glass, a picture frame with sparkling pebbles glued all over it, so randomly it almost looks like an explosion. The wolf has always been his favorite. The details are rough, but his expression is peaceful nonetheless.

He gathers around the last few documents, in a smaller box he grabbed from the storage room. The three drawers on the left side of the desk come next and with those he has filled yet another box. The cartoon-ish banana on the side of this one terrifies him a bit and he decides to just put it outside with the others.

 

 

“You could have told me sooner, you know?” Joonmyeon is sitting crosslegged on the counter with a slice of stuffed turkey breast. Before he can say anything, though, Joonmyeon waves him off. “I know it was sudden, I meant that you could have told me sooner you were... ” he makes vague gesture with his hands, but Kyungsoo understands.

If Sehun had sensed something and Jongdae had seen it coming, Joonmyeon already knew before even Kyungsoo himself realized. When he sat down with him, a bottle of champagne between them and no glasses, trying to breath a conviction they both lacked into something that was barely even standing on its two feet.

 

“And now?” Joonmyeon asks, looking up from his plate with a hopeful smile, like they both know where this whole thing is going.

 

 

There were exactly four pictures hanging in his office. One is of him sitting on a beach somewhere in Spain with an ice-cream melting in his hand, with his hand held out to stop the photographer from taking the picture. He remembers how hot it was and how glad he was the person that invented ice-cream and the ice-cream machine he had bought as soon as he had both the following year. He remembers the jar with the spare change he put aside for the machine that grew way faster than it was possible with just his meager contribution.

Chanyeol had lowered the camera right after to smile at him, with his hair pinned up in a tiny bun, strands coming loose as they dried.

 

The second one was taken on a bridge somewhere in France, he remembers his broken English while asking to a couple to take a picture for him. He was smiling, waiting for the flash to go off, but he felt the ground being yanked from under his feet when he got picked right up bridal stile. “Like this!” Chanyeol screamed, making the couple laugh. It was not as embarrassing as it could have been if Chanyeol had kissed him and called him princess, or something.

 

“But I wanted to,” Chanyeol was leaning on the railing of their hotel room somewhere in Germany. “Not to call you princess, but the kissing. Yeah, that would be pretty nice.”

 

The third one was shot on the roof of Joonmyeon's apartment. He remembers smiling for the picture as he clung to Chanyeol's sweater in the chilling air of early Autumn. Chanyeol is looking at him with one of his prettiest smile, or at least he remembers it as such because it is the last one he was there for. The party was in full swing by then, with people singing at the top of their lungs, dancing stupidly and drinking just on this side of irresponsibly.

 

“We should go home,” whispered Chanyeol into his ear just as Baekhyun got closer wielding his phone camera. The two shots he had taken after the cake had started to get to him and he had a fuzzy feeling in his stomach that made him smile crookedly at Chanyeol's proposition.

After the party there was the station and then neither really felt like smiling much. They took one picture while waiting for the train. Kyungsoo has his hands hiding his face and his red rimmed eyes and Chanyeol has his lips pressed to his cheek in the closest thing to a goodbye they were both able to utter.

The fourth picture is a black and white picture taken the day Kyungsoo got the keys for the restaurant with Joonmyeon on his left and Jongdae on his right. There is still the old sign up and the three of them are smiling, squinting against the sun. He has the key in his right hand, showing it to the camera.

As he passes them to the new official owners, Kyungsoo looks back one last time. He feels something like longing, but it is more towards what this could have been rater than the place itself. He gave away everything that made it his. Even the sign is gone.

 

 

 

The sun is glaring down when gets off the train. Outside the station, there are endless fields with the only road a thin black strip that cuts them in the middle. On his left there is a tiny parking lot with a handful of cars and behind them there is what appears to be a public park. He doesn't notice the man standing under the shadow of the trees besides one of the cars right away, but when he does he is unable to look at anything else.

With the handles of the bag clutched tightly in his hands, he decides to stand his ground.

Chanyeol looks good with short black hair that fall messily above his eyes. He still has that careless look he used to sport on lazy days that he knows makes him look great anyway. The hotel reservation he made in a fit of insecurity yesterday night seems to make his meager luggage heavier as he drags his feet towards the parking lot. It sounded a lot better in his head, this whole, getting back his love life with a grand gesture thing.

When he is close enough to speak he takes a good look at Chanyeol's face before he opens his mouth and says the wrong thing or Chanyeol has to politely tell him that he finally asked out his PA or something equally sad.

 

“I sold the restaurant,” he says, good as any to break the ice. “The dishwasher broke and the water went everywhere.” Chanyeol doesn't say anything and a tiny bit of Kyungsoo is grateful because if this is his only chance to say whatever it is that he dragged around for five years so be it.

 

He never understood romantic movies and game shows need for poignant silences, so he just takes a deep breath and says it. “Also, I love you.”

 

Chanyeol looks at him for a couple of seconds before he fishes out of his shirt pocket a tiny sculpted hamster, with a round plump tummy and a very satisfied look on its face. It almost looks like it is smiling.

 

“I was about to send you this when I got your message,” Chanyeol looks a little smug as he offers the hamster to Kyungsoo's waiting hand. Kyungsoo closes his hand around it, waiting, but Chanyeol always had a flair for dramatics and poignant silences and just smiles.

 

“I don't have a dishwasher,” Chanyeol says, sliding his hand along Kyungsoo's forearm to take his bag. “But I'm always amenable to a bit of scrubbing for one of your chocolate cakes.”

 

 

 


End file.
